


Choices and Truths (and Lies)

by Tormented_Gale



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Gen, Not sure if the violence tag is actually needed but putting it in anyhow just to be safe, Retelling of End of FE: Awakening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-13 02:53:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12974238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tormented_Gale/pseuds/Tormented_Gale
Summary: Robin knows what he's doing long before the battle, but as they arrive, and his plans crumble around him, his choice perhaps proves far more difficult to achieve than he expected.





	Choices and Truths (and Lies)

The moment the battle starts, all hell breaks loose. As strange as it is to be on the back of a monstrous dragon hellbent on destroying the world, it is stranger still to feel so physically stable standing there. The turbulent winds whip at them all and bring tears to more than one eye, but still they stand, still they fight. Robin leads them beside Chrom, determination in his mind and his heart filled with his own desires, desires Grima does not or perhaps cannot understand. He wishes to know where he went wrong, what turned him to the other aspect of himself, but now is not the time for such thoughts.

Robin steps boldly forward as his mirror self stares down at them with a look of utter disregard and loathing. Around Grima are more Risen, shambling and groaning, while monsters much smaller but no less dangerous mill forward with growls on their purplish lips. Grima raises his head, looking down his nose, and Robin meets those eyes. Perhaps it is why he sees - 

“Look out!” he shouts.

Bolts of purple lightning rain down on all of them just as a gravity hole appears beneath. Every single one of them falls to their knees, clutching chests, arms, and legs, and lungs heaving for every breath. More than one person screams as they collapse and Robin is no exception. He feels one leg give and lands on his knee, but manages to keep the other under him. His body trembles beneath the onslaught, but more than that, he feels the power thrumming in his veins, power he knows is Grima’s.

“Yes, I know you feel it,” Grima says silkily as he steps forward. A few of the Risen move behind him to protect his flanks on the offhand chance Robin sent fliers around. He curses at himself for not even thinking of the strategy. He had wanted to keep them all close so he could protect his family, but in not thinking straight… had he doomed them? His throat closes up as he tries to stand, his head swimming in power, agony, and fierce determination.

“I don’t care,” Robin snarls. He jerks forward like a marionette in the hands of a novice and Grima just laughs.

“I will give you a choice, my other self,” Grima says, brow raised. “Give yourself to me, become one with me, and I will spare all of those who stand behind you. Your so-called… friends.”

Robin freezes. He can hear their strangled breaths all around him, their owners barely conscious enough to stay on the dragon’s back. His heart races in his chest, thudding so loud he is certain it is audible to all those near him. Give in? He could… give in, and they’d all be saved? His booted foot moves an inch forward, desperation warring with strategy and his own mind.

“Robin, don’t! You know It is a trap!” Chrom’s voice pierces through his own thoughts, but it is the hand grabbing onto his own that truly stops him from moving forward. He looks back at Chrom, sees Lissa’s face, notices the same pained but determined look in Lucina’s eye. His hand trembles in Chrom’s, but he narrows his eyes, turns his own hand around to grip Chrom’s once, squeezing, and shifts to stand up straight. Chrom’s hand loosens and falls from his, and Robin stands on his own two feet despite the pain in his body.

“You lie,” he says, and inside of his very self, he knows the truths and lies of this being as intimately as if he’d made the decisions himself. “I know you’re lying. I won’t allow you to do them any more harm.” He steps forward, willing his feet and legs to not falter.

Grima sighs with a roll of his eyes. “I was trying to give you a noble way to go about this, but I suppose you are too stupid or too foolish to take the offer.” He smirks and opens his arms wide. “Of  _ course _ I was always going to kill them.”

Robin feels it the moment the magic is cast, but his shield is too late. His head wrenches back as his entire being, body and soul and mind, are caught in a maelstrom of magic and power unlike anything he is truly felt before. He screams, loud and high and long, until there is a  _ crack!  _ rending the air, and the others disappear from around him.

When he manages to open his eyes, he finds himself standing, but only just. His head throbs in time with his heart, a melody becoming far too familiar to be comforting. Around him he finds nothing - not a shred of humanity, of life, of freedom, of the land he has come to love. He sees only endless, weighty darkness. Purple lights float around him as if suspended by spirits - he supposes It is possible they  _ are  _ spirits - and he finds Grima in front of him, relaxed and head tilted to the side.

He doesn’t need to ask where he is; he recognizes this place as some kind of inter-space, a place between places, a universe that should not exist. Grima crosses his arms in front of him as if waiting for a question, but all he gets from Robin is a, “Well? What now?”

“Ah, finally - a good question from you,” Grima sighs. “Now we become one being yet again, and we evolve to the godhood I was born for.”

“I want nothing to do with you,” Robin snarls, his hands in fists at his sides. He isn’t sure where the others are, but he is certain they’re not dead. The alternative means Grima has already won, regardless of Robin’s decisions or actions.

“You have little choice,” Grima says slowly, as if explaining to a child. Robin truly hates the look of arrogance displayed by a face matching his own. “Now, you will stay here, like a good part of me, and I will deal with the nuisance outside.”

“You won’t,” Robin snaps and in seconds has his magic in his hands. He has no tome, no spellbook, and realizes in this moment he does not need one. It is raw power that floods his form and he unleashes it in one huge torrent. It strikes Grima dead on, sending the other’s body flying through the endless space.

Robin groans as his own body feels the pain, his veins igniting with feedback, but he remains standing through will alone. He watches as the smoke clears from his spell and smiles to himself when he sees the crumpled coat. Is it possible? He wants so badly to believe Grima is gone, here and now, and that the pain his body feels is only that of him dying in response.

“Pathetic fool,” his voice whispers in his ear, and Robin gasps at the cold blade shoved through his coat and into his back. An arm wraps over his chest below his throat in a mimicry of an embrace and his head lands on the shoulder behind him. He cannot get enough air; he cannot even stand on his own. He hears the laughter in his mind more than physically.

“Did you really think it would work?” Grima whispers into his ear, voice growing more furious with every syllable. He wrenches the dagger in Robin’s back, twisting it with a quick jerk of his wrist, and Robin can hear the gritting of teeth despite his own groan of pain. “You are  _ mine _ , you wretch, and it is high time you learned it!”

“N-Never yours,” Robin says, hoping it sounds stronger than it does in his ears. “I will never be yours.”

“Why do you resist me still!?” Grima snarls and throws Robin to the ground, yanking the dagger free. He snaps his fingers and watches as Robin screams and writhes in front of him. Certainly he must feel something, Robin thinks detachedly, but Grima so wishes for the unruly part of himself to fall, to kneel. Robin whimpers on the ground, ashamed of the sound, and lies still as his blood pools beneath him.

“Now,” Grima says and stands in front of Robin’s limp form. “Now, it is time to finally,  _ finally _ be one.”

It is no good - Robin cannot raise his head let alone move his body. He tries to breathe but each one is like sandpaper scraping in his throat and is filled with the taste of copper. The cough rips through him as Grima’s voice begins a spell in a low guttural tone.

_ I’ve failed all of you _ . It is the only thought in his mind as darkness descends like a warm, welcoming blanket. Robin stares through half lidded eyes at his own shoes now standing in his blood. It is a strange, superimposed picture, yet somehow it seems to fit. He is the master of his own demise, and has gotten every single person counting on him killed. It is now only a matter of moments, of breaths.

“Don’t give up!”

Distant, far more distant than the immediacy of the spell engulfing this form: a voice, an echo of the past and the future and the present. Robin’s head twitches ever so slightly at the sound and he groans as he twitches his fingers. It sounds so important, like something he should concentrate on, but it is so simple to lay beneath this blanket of darkness and rest. He is so tired of fighting.

“Robin, don’t give up! You have to keep fighting!”

Less muffled, but he still cannot make out the words exactly, as though he is swimming through the murkiest water. The final one sounds like “fighting” but he cannot be sure. Robin drags his hand through his blood and brings it to his gut behind which the pain flares brightest. He coughs again and Grima’s voice rises like a tidal wave.

“Damn you, fight back!”

Chrom. That’s Chrom’s voice. Robin strains to hear it, but he knows the panicked tone, the deep baritone, the hitch of pain. He knows it because he has heard it so many times on the battlefield as he cast spell after spell in a desperate attempt to keep the voice’s owner safe.

“Chrom,” he whispers, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. Grima’s voice crescendos, echoing in the odd space, but it is not loud to Robin, not when so many of his friends’ voices ring out over it. Encouragement, love, protection, desire for safety, and support, but more importantly, if he could hear their voices… they were alive. They were waiting for him.

“No,” he says, and even if the word is not loud, it is strong. Robin pushes himself to his knees, feels the spurt of blood that flows out of his back, and staggers to his feet. Grima gapes at him even as the voice begins to lose the taste and flow of the spell and it sputters out worthlessly between them. In its place rings the voices of Robin’s companions, stumbling over each other as they all join into one, continuous chant.

“Silence, all of you!” Grima screams uselessly.

Robin tilts his head back slightly and closes his eyes. He can feel the spell unraveling, the space around them too strained to be maintained. In a moment, he slams his hand forward, the purple mark once so hated glowing, and the power around him shatters into thousands of shards. For a moment he is all of those shards and himself and Grima. In the next breath, his body materializes from the aether and he lurches into the group of them.

“Robin!” 

Chrom catches him on one side, Lucina on the other. He knows his wounds are costly, but it is not the reason he cannot help but clutch to them both for a heartbeat more. It is they who saved him from himself, from his destiny, each time it tried to drag him away.

“I’m here,” he says as if to ground himself.

“Damn right you are,” Chrom avows. His eyes dart to the stained coat which Robin hopes is dark enough by itself to cover up the amount of blood he has lost.

“Let’s finish this,” Robin says as forcefully as he can. He stands up on his own only just and brings forth the power living inside of him.

Light streaks from his body, pure unlike everything else Grima is, and he hears Naga’s soft, melodic voice as she speaks to them all,  _ Sons and daughters of man, wield my power - defeat the evil dragon! Bring peace once more! _

“Together!” Chrom shouts and raises his Exalted Falchion into the air. Their wounds miraculously close, their energy restored, but even as Robin moves forward he knows his own injuries have largely remained. Were they to heal, they would only help Grima, and he refuses to be the pawn here when the battle is nigh.

“Together,” Robin agrees, and he surges into the fight.

They clash, monster against human, Grima against them all. Robin directs them, favoring his right side over his left. They have worked so often and so well together that there is no hesitation in listening to his orders or strategies. Chrom flows along with him, protecting him when enemies get too close, and Grima shouts inaudible inanities from where he directs the flow of battle. With each moment that passes, Robin’s energy flags, and though his power sustains him, he knows he will not last long.

Each of them is still supporting another. Frederick covers a wide strike at Cordelia; Sumia drives her javelin through the chest of a monster too close to Nowi. Not one of them fights alone. He feels the world stir with magic both bright and dark as their mages barrage the lot of Risen standing about Grima. It clears the path.

Robin takes the chance.

“Chrom!” he shouts, hating how his voice hitches, and they run together as quickly as they can. Chrom’s leg is wounded, as is his arm, but he moves as if he is unhurt or cannot feel the pain. Perhaps it is the covenant, the awakening, allowing him to do so; Robin doesn’t know. He cannot feel Naga’s power as the others do.

_ Will you deal the final blow yourself, blood of Grima, or will you let the dragon slumber to awaken again? It is your decision _ .

It is his decision merely because he is the true death of Grima, the true chance this world has for peace. As Robin runs beside Chrom, breath heaving out of him in winded pants and leaving a blood trail in his wake, his heart thudding in his ears, he smiles, and he looks at Grima, through Grima, at the world so far below the monster.

Grima screeches inhumanly and throws all manner of magics their way. Streaks of purple, forked lightning spark at their feet but ultimately miss - a well-timed shield by another of their mages - and Chrom strikes out with his sword, cutting a furrow deeply in an upward slash through Grima’s chest. Grima screams - or perhaps Robin does, he isn’t actually sure. Robin ignores the immediate look of panic Chrom sends his way and his hand darts out to hit Chrom in the chest. It is not a deadly strike, not like the one he had pierced Chrom’s side with, but it is enough to off-balance him and throw him back.

Chrom hits the dragon’s scaly skin far enough away that he has to try to run back, but purple light surrounds Grima and Robin. Robin steps carefully forward, his blood running down his body in thick streams, and yet he feels so light, so giddy. Grima, coughing up red and black sludge, stares up at him with disbelief and the deepest hate.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he snarls but Robin merely looks down at him. It is still not an expression he likes seeing on his own face.

“I’m stopping you,” Robin says.

“Robin!” Chrom shouts. He cannot find a way around the barrier; Robin’s made sure of it as best he can. “Robin, don’t!”

“It is alright, Chrom,” Robin says calmly. He hears the protesting shout and hopes someone will hold Chrom back in case the future Exalt does something foolish.

“Robin! Please!”

Despite the shouts, despite the imploring cries, Robin raises his hand and sees the flash of recognition in Grima’s eyes.

“You wouldn’t,” Grima snarls through bloodied lips.

“If I had made a single, different choice… I would have become you,” Robin says, feeling his own blood drip from his mouth. “There are times I think I even understand why you did all of this, why your heart might have turned away from the very people that made it worth living. You are a coward, Grima. I am no longer that coward, and you are no longer my future.”

The light grows stronger, going from just a halo around his hand to engulfing his entire body. He steps up to Grima and stares down at the monster that had so desperately wanted to end their entire world. At one time he may have felt pity or remorse, but he now only feels relief.

“All of them will live,” he says, and it is such a joyous feeling that he almost laughs.

Grima lunges at him, and Chrom shouts at him, but neither attack nor words land. Instead, Robin closes his hand into a fist, and the light, once focused in the marking on his hand, slams into Grima, sinking in like a dragon’s teeth. Grima wails, loudly, and the dragon upon which they are all riding shares the agony, its head thrashing around.

Robin stops, standing before his counterpart, and smiles, bright and unbridled, even as Grima screams in front of him every obscenity possible. The dragon nearly throws Robin off balance, but they are one in the same, and Robin wraps his mind and will around the fading energies about them. He uses the dragon’s power, the dredges of it, to slow their descent, and it is a heady thing, and a poisonous thing, and he is glad to stop as the dragon’s body safely lands on the rolling plains below.

His legs give first and he falls to his knees. Every breath is too short and his pale face is flecked with bloody spittle with each cough and gasp. Ahead of him, his mirror is locked in an arc, his body sparking and glowing, and Grima stares with utter contempt and agony before his shouts begin to fade, before his body begins to disintegrate, and Robin watches with that same smile on his face as Grima dissipates and becomes nothing more than a legend.

The purple fires around him give out as he falls to his hands. He wanted to keep his dignity, to stand as he died, but his body is exhausted, the magic in his veins winking out like stars in the morning sky. He drags in breath after breath and simply tilts his head back to stare up at the sky, watching the birds fly overhead and caw at each other in their unruly way.

“Robin! Gods, Robin!”

Hands, warm hands, lift him and gently lay him back against a shoulder. Robin coughs hard, his back aching distantly, and he cannot bring himself to look up into Chrom’s face.

“You stupid fool,” Chrom gasps. Robin feels the wet teardrops hit his own face but doesn’t shed a tear himself. He is too happy to.

“Tell them… they saved this world… and I will think of them always,” Robin says almost casually, but his voice is too breathy, and his chest too caved in. His blood stains Chrom’s hands, his skin, his clothing.

“Tell them yourself,” Chrom argues.

Robin curls his head in against Chrom’s shoulder, letting himself be buoyed while the magic rips him apart and his physical wounds destroy his body. He feels one hand card through his hair once, twice, and it makes him drowsy.

“Please, Chrom… tell them.”

Chrom’s breath hitches but he finally nods firmly. “I will tell them.”

“Good.” Robin closes his eyes and realizes he can no longer feel Chrom’s fingers or his warmth. He forces his eye open once more and sees purple stardust and light drifting off into the world around them. Ah yes, he cannot exist, not anymore. This is more than just dying. This is… ceasing to be. That’s fine too. He closes his eyes. “I… Thank you, Chrom.”

Chrom says something, but It is too difficult to hear, and Robin knows It is past time. He wonders if Naga granted him just a few more seconds, holding together his pathetic form long enough to get his farewell in, but it doesn’t sound plausible even to his broken mind. It is a strange physical feeling to be broken apart until naught but the soul and mind are left and just like that - 

Robin is no more, and Chrom is left holding air, his gloves stained with the blood of his friend.


End file.
